


Not Even a Choice

by Daisiestdaisy (Doyle)



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Introspection, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 20:01:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12540024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doyle/pseuds/Daisiestdaisy
Summary: Victor questions Oswald's decision to let Ed go, and realizes the truth about their relationship. Missing scene for 4.04.





	Not Even a Choice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Legs (InsanityRule)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsanityRule/gifts).



> Because I forgot a piece of canon until after writing this: assume that Victor either didn't hear Oswald's line on the docks about frozen Ed being a reminder to not let love weaken him again, or it's only now he's worked out what that meant.

The one trait both his Victors shared, besides the obvious, was a complete and infuriating inability to grasp the idea of ‘knocking’.

At least with this one, the sudden chill that precipitated his arrival gave some kind of warning. It gave Oswald a few seconds to drop the press clipping he’d been looking at into his desk drawer and slam it closed before he barked out, “What?!”

Then he remembered that contract employees could be touchy – something about not spending enough time with you to learn the difference between yelling _at_ them and just yelling – and Victor’s unique skillset would make him tricky to replace. He took a breath and forced his expression into something that could have been taken for a smile. “Did you need something?”

“Just wanted to confirm you’ll be paying my usual rate.”

“Of course. You have Mister Penn’s number. He’ll make the arrangements.” He was efficient that way, and reliable, and Oswald almost never thought about how differently Ed would have run things.

Fries nodded, but he made no move to leave Oswald alone with his thoughts.

Oswald’s voice was carefully free of irritation. “Anything else, Victor?”

“That’s all.”

“Well. Bon voyage.”

Victor shifted on his feet. The movement sent a blast of frigid air rolling across the desk. Oswald could see his own breath.

“Last chance to freeze Nygma,” Victor said. “Since you’re paying me anyway.”

Oswald sat back in his chair. “I already said no. Anyway, I think my customers would welcome a change of decor.”

He liked to think he was hard to unnerve, but that eerie, pale blue stare always seemed to go all the way through him. It made him want to fill up the silence. Maybe he should see if Victor was interested in branching out into interrogations.

“This is better,” he said. “Let him live without that intellect he’s oh-so proud of. Let him regret crossing me every minute he spends struggling with some awful, _nonsensical_ riddle. They do say revenge is a dish best served cold.”

Victor, with no acknowledgement of what he’d thought was a fairly good pun, said: “And how smart does he need to be to come back here with another gun? Or a can of gas and a match?”

“He won’t. You don’t know Ed. That wouldn’t satisfy that need of his for the perfect revenge.”

“New Ed might not care.”

“Maybe you’ve mistaken this for a democracy,” Oswald said, louder than he’d intended. “Or perhaps a debate team. The decision’s made, Victor. Thank you for your excellent service, always a pleasure, feel free to let yourself out.”

He took his fountain pen from its holder, as if Victor had interrupted him in the middle of some important business, and that he hadn’t just been looking at that news report from his election campaign. Savoring his victory, he told himself. Reminding himself of what Ed had been in the moment some Gazette photographer had taken that picture – grinning beside him on the podium, Oswald lifting his arm as he announced him as his chief of staff – so he could better appreciate how far he’d fallen.

“You’re in love with him,” Victor said.

Oswald looked up at him. “Yes,” he said. “What’s your point?”

The environmental suit didn’t allow a lot of room for expressive movement. Victor might have shrugged. “It puts a different light on things.”

“Well, it shouldn’t.” All right, so he loved Ed; so he was going to love him, and only him, all his life; he’d reached the same bitter acceptance of that as he had when he’d admitted to himself that his leg was never going to heal. It didn’t factor one bit into whether or not he let him live. “Letting him go was the smart choice.”

“It wasn’t,” Victor said, bluntly. “Putting a bullet in his head would be the smart choice. But I get it now. I thought you’d lost your mind, but this makes sense. Of course it’s dangerous. Of course it’s stupid. But you love him, so it’s not even a choice.”

Oswald had been bristling more and more with every insult, but to his own surprise he found himself touched enough by the last part to let it slide. Loving Ed had changed everything – had changed _him_ – and nobody had ever really acknowledged the fact of that love before, aside from Ed himself, and only ever with a rejection and a sneer.

For a moment, he let himself feel the realness and the weight of it.

“Ed is,” he said, and there weren’t words. “Difficult.”

Victor nodded slowly. “I can see that,” he said. “I mean, the love of my life died because I failed her, and yours is alive and well but he can be kind of a handful. So I guess we both have it rough.”

Oswald narrowed his eyes, and weighed his options, and for the second time that night he generously spared a life. “Good night, Victor.”


End file.
